The inventive concept relates to buck-boost converters and related operating methods.
Many contemporary electronic devices require one or more constant operating voltage(s) in order to function properly. Thus, the provision of a voltage controller capable of maintaining a constant voltage has become a material design consideration in many electronic devices. There are different kinds of voltage controllers. However, one important class of circuits used to control one or more operating voltages is known as the “buck-boost converter”.
The buck-boost converter is essentially a direct current to direct current (DC-to-DC) converter that receives an input voltage and fixes a corresponding output voltage to a given reference voltage. If the input voltage is less than the reference voltage, the buck-boost converter operates as a “boost converter” to boost (i.e., increase) the input voltage, and if the input voltage is greater than the reference voltage, the buck-boost converter operates as a “buck-converter” to buck (i.e., decrease) the input voltage.